Tracklisting/A Plague On Both My Houses/Watching The News With The Sound Off/The New Number Two - 030715

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Another frustrating, and ultimately disappointing, day today...

Remixed/remastered ...PLAGUE and WATCHING... in CE5/AA3. Both sound fine and are keepers.

However, I spent practically the whole day trying to sort out ...NUMBER TWO, and having got to the 37th different mix, I decided that I can't do anything with it in its present state. I won't even begin to list all the hoops I tried to jump through to bring this track home, but ultimately I couldn't get it to work. It's a shame, because I really love the track. I gave it every chance to come through, but...

The problem lies in my choice of VST soft synths, I plumped for a couple of "distressed" sounds which seemed to occupy the same space EQ-wise. No amount of adjustment would make the various parts sit well together, so I have decided to drop the track from the album. I'll revisit it again in the future - I just don't have the time for it right now.

Of course, that now means I have to adjust the tracklisting. What larks! A job for next week, perhaps. Well, at least the album will be even shorter now...;-).

Enjoy the fine weather!

Regards,


djp

Tracklisting/Complications From A Fall/The New Number Two/A Plague On Both Your Houses/Watching The News With The Sound Off - 020715

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Another frustrating today, but maybe not as bad as yesterday.

Having reviewed the work I did yesterday, COMPLICATIONS... passed muster, the others didn't.

I spent much of the day remixing in CE5/AA3 - ...PLAGUE... is now fine. ...NUMBER proved very frustrating - I'm now up to Mix 29 and I'm still not sure if it's OK. The 29th mix is OK to sleep on overnight - if I'm not there, I'm nearly there. I didn't get around to WATCHING... at all.

Busy day tomorrow, I reckon...;-).

Regards,


djp

Tracklisting/Watching The News With The Sound Off/Complications From A Fall/The New Number Two/A Plague On Both My Houses - 010715

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Frustrating sort of day. I decided to go for a spin in the car to review the tracklisting over the stereo speakers. To do that, I enlisted the aid of my old iPod Shuffle, which I thought had packed it in a few years ago, but apparently was only resting between engagements...

Went off for a spin for an hour or more, out by Lough Derg and Terryglass and back by Borrisokane (as you do...). I reckon the "musical" tracks are fine, but some of the ambient tracks need to be tweaked,

I adjusted the EQs for WATCHING..., COMPLICATIONS... and ...PLAGUE, and they seem to be OK, but ...NUMBER TWO is giving me trouble. I couldn't tweak the EQ, so I had to do a quick remix of the track in CE5 and master in AA3. Not sure if that works so well. If I can't fix the track, I'll just have to drop it.

I'll check these four tracks again tomorrow and see where that leaves me.

Bummer...

Regards,

djp

Tracklisting/Watching The News With The Sound Off - 220615

Sponsored by "Music (random)".

Back from the weekend roadtrip, I decided to give the most current version of the tracklisting, Version 3, a critical listen. I felt I needed to change the outro to WATCHING... The original version has a silly gramophone-winding-down effect which I've used on a number of occasions in the past, to the extent that even I thought it was clichéd. So I decided to fade the track out a bit earlier - edited it in AA3.

But then I foolishly thought that I could just insert the new version into the tracklisting file and then "drag" all the other tracks and keep the crossfades, Na-ahh, not in AA3. I basically had to create new crossfades, which, Murphy's Law being what it is, do not match those in the original Version 3, so even though I've shortened WATCHING... by a good 10 seconds, the overall tracklisting is longer by 30 seconds. It could only happen to me! I will now have to go back to the original Version 3 and try to work out how to recreate the crossfades. So, today's longer version of the tracklisting is Version 3a, while I have created a Version 3b to work on whenever I get the chance.

No rush. Maybe not tomorrow. Something else lined up...

Regards,


djp

Watching The News With The Sound Off/You Have My Heart Scalded - 120415

Sponsored by "Dronescape".

WATCHING...

I'd tracked a couple of spoken word parts for this track a few weeks back, but when I checked them today for editing purposes, I discovered that there were artefacts from the audio cleanup process which I couldn't remove or "work around". So I was faced with the choice of tracking the parts again, or of scrapping them entirely. I chose the latter, as I have no guarantee that the problem won't occur again with new parts. Executive decision - get over it...

...SCALDED

Edited the various vocal parts in CE5. Almost fully sorted - tomorrow should complete that part of the process.

Regards,


djp

Watching The News With The Sound Off/I Can Explain...Everything/Is Everybody Happy Yet? - 020315

Sponsored by "Amon Duul I and II".

Tracked various vocal parts on the Gulag Mobile using the Sennheisier e855:-

WATCHING...

- two spoken word parts

...EXPLAIN...

- one spoken word part

...HAPPY...

- one spoken word part and twelve tracks of singing (nine tracks of harmonies)

Audio cleanup in AA3 and inserted into the relevant project files in CE5.

Although WATCHING... has already been mixed/mastered, I will need to do this again to cater for the spoken word parts. Not a problem much.

I reckon I have only 4 more tracks to record vocals for. I should have that sorted tomorrow with a bit of luck...

Regards,


djp

Watching The News With The Sound Off - 230214

Sponsored by "Augustus Pablo".

Mixed and mastered the track in CE5 and AA3. Had to fix some clicks which appeared when tracking from VST plugin to audio. Mostly sorted, although some vestiges remain. Nothing to fret about.

Another track completed. That makes two, by the way...;-).

Regards,


djp

Unwinnable Caption Competition/Watching The News With The Sound Off - 190214

Sponsored by "arseblog.com".

Busy day today...

UNWINNABLE...

Tracked audio for the Prologue Forum Romanum and the Majken's Chimera Wide Pad VST plugins in CE5, via the Phonic Firefly and the Behringer mixer. I also played around with the Squier Strat and Ric parts and edited the Minimogue VA audio part.

The track is in pretty good shape and ready to dub up at some stage in the future.

WATCHING...

The Wide Pad part, isolated, is actually a (n unintentionally) nice piece of ambient music in its own right, so I'm going to use it, pretty much as is, as a new track (Watching The News With The Sound Off). Now that's being efficient and economical...

Regards,


djp